A Shadow of His Former Self
by Evenlodes Friend
Summary: Three years after Sherlock's apparent suicide, John gets a call from Greg Lestrade. An unidentified man has been pulled from the Thames, close to death. Can John identify him?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: ** I wrote this donnkeys ago, but never got around to posting it. Health warning - I don't know much about pneumonia and compromised lungs, so in the grand tradition of creative writers everywhere, I made it up. Please don't criticise me for inaccuracy on medical details, its the love story that counts!

* * *

It was nearly three years. John had moved back into the flat in Baker Street. Things had not gone well with Maria. Solicitors' letters had started arriving. Mrs Hudson shook her head sadly when she brought them up the stairs. John was surprised to find he felt nothing when he read them. He had been a fool to even consider getting married. He had been cruel to Maria to get her hopes up like that – it was never going to work. Her words barked in his head every time he saw the envelopes:

'I feel like Princess bloody Diana! There are three people in our marriage! The only difference is that one of us is dead!'

He should have known better, he told himself. She was young and beautiful and a lovely person. She deserved better. And she was right.

He was still in love with a dead man. And now, sitting through the long nights in the lounge he had shared with the man who had never been his lover, he knew with absolute certainty that he always would be.

Thursday afternoon. It was John's day off from the surgery. He had pulled three 16 hour shifts, doing call-outs as well as clinics, and he lay in the armchair, unable to do anything except stare at the ceiling. He had found that it was better to stare at the ceiling than it was to stare at the leather chair that had always been _his_.

The phone rang. John's mobile – he didn't keep a landline in the flat.

Peep Peep. Peep Peep.

It rang for a while, then stilled. Then started again.

He reached out for it, fumbled, managed to answer.

'Yeah?'

'John?'

Familiar voice. It took him a moment to place it, though.

'Greg?'

'Mate, are you busy?'

'Not really.'

'Only, I - well. There's something you ought to see.'

The words were like a bolt of electricity down his spine. John sat up in his chair. 'What?'

There was a pause at the other end. Lestrade marshalling his thoughts carefully. He always did that – used to drive Sherlock crazy:

_'Just bloody say it, can't you? God, you people! Why does it take you so long to say anything at all?' _

_'Because we think before we speak, Sherlock.' _

_'I sincerely doubt that!'_

'The river plods pulled a bloke out of the Thames this morning. In a bad way. It's probably nothing, but it would be a real help if you could come and identify him.'

'Identify him?'

'Yeah.'

'Who is it, Greg? Don't fuck me about.'

'Just come, okay?'

Greg gave him a ward number and hung up. John sat there for a moment, staring into nothingness, aware that his teeth were suddenly clenched. Then he whispered under his breath.

'Moriarty.'

Greg was waiting for him in the corridor outside a private room. His face was serious, slightly grey.

They said nothing as they greeted one another. John nodded soberly.

'Okay. You wouldn't drag me out here for nothing. It's him, isn't it? It's Moriarty.'

Greg bit his upper lip, and his eyes sought the glass panel in the door beside them. 'You'd better have a look for yourself.'

The room was sparsely decorated with the usual hospital pastels. There was a bed, and a vital signs monitor and an oxygen canister on a trolley. John had seen the scene a million times. He had been the one in the bed all too often.

He didn't want to look at the man under the waffle blanket. Didn't want to see that objectionable sneer. But he wanted it to be him. Wanted to know they had finally caught the man who had killed Sherlock. Because he was as sure of that as he ever had been of anything. Sherlock would not have jumped otherwise. Moriarty had used some means to make him.

After it had all happened, after John had seen him fall, after he had identified the body, everything had fallen into place. Moriarty was nowhere to be found. The actor who was supposed to have been hired by Sherlock was missing too. It didn't take the Met long to put the pieces together. There was a scandal. The reporter and the chief editor of the paper that had broken the story of Sherlock as a fraud were both sacked. Holmes's name was cleared. John's campaign, conducted in a blur of numbed grief, had been successful. But it meant nothing to him if Moriarty, the architect of it all, remained free.

So John peered through the glass with the thin wire mesh set into it, squinted at the figure lying prone in the bed, and held his breath. Because he so wanted it to be him.

Another man, a weaker man, might have been broken in that moment.

The face of the man in the bed was bruised and swollen, but there was no mistaking that profile, those preposterously heavy cheekbones, those lavish lips, however misshapen.

The cry escaped John's mouth before his brain had caught up with the recognition.

'No!'

And then he turned to Greg, knowing how wild he must look, how desperate. 'It can't be!'

Tears were gathering in the inspector's eyes.

'I don't know how,' he said, gruff with emotion. 'I don't know, John. But it is. It's him.'

John's hand rested on the door. He looked at the wood under his fingers, felt its grain. It was as if the hand that touched it was something separate from himself, a distant thing. His head swam a little.

The world had turned upside down.

'But I identified the body. It was him, Greg. I swear it. It's not possible.'

'I know, mate.'

'People don't come back from the dead.'

'No.'

'But then people don't have arch enemies either. Not real people.' He turned to Lestrade, smiled through his tears. 'I told him that. You wouldn't remember. The night of Lauriston Gardens.'

'Your first case together.' Greg nodded, brushed the tears from his own eyes with the back of his hand.

'The cabbie,' John went on. 'Mycroft had kidnapped me and spirited me away. He said he was Sherlock's arch enemy. I said to Sherlock that real people, normal people, don't have arch enemies.'

'_He_ did.'

'Yes. He did.' John wiped his hand over his eyes. 'He's back.'

Greg nodded again. John shifted his head on the fulcrum of his neck, threw back his shoulders, stiffened his resolve. Became himself again.

There was a brief clearing of a throat behind them, and they turned to see a stocky man in a white coat.

'Toby Manville,' he said, holding out his hand to John. 'I'm our John Doe's physician. You must be Doctor Watson.'

John shook his hand briskly. 'Just John is fine. And his name is Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. What are his chances?'

Manville didn't react when John mentioned the name. Perhaps he didn't know it.

'Looks good. He must have the constitution of an ox. A lesser man wouldn't have survived.'

John could feel his eyebrows bouncing up to his hairline. 'Give me a précis, would you?'

'Currently, hypothermia from being in the water is the main issue. And the pneumonia-'

'Pneumonia? But that's-'

'Yes, underlying infection. I would say the pneumonia was well advanced before he went into the water.'

'And?'

Manville shook his head. 'Well, it's hard to be precise. He's been badly beaten on several occasions, judging from the ages of the bruises. And tortured as well – electrical burns on various parts of his body, whipping, and the marks on his shoulders would suggest waterboarding.'

John suddenly found himself feeling queasy.

'Waterboarding? How do _you_ know how to spot that?' Greg asked him with a note of disbelief.

Manville and John shared a knowing glance.

'It's more common than you'd think,' John told him. 'Especially in domestic violence cases. GPs see it a lot too.'

While Greg shook his head in disgust, Manville went on.

'The malnutrition is also advanced. I should say he's been incarcerated somewhere cold and damp, with very little or no food, for at least three weeks. As I say, a lesser man would have died in the water, even if he had managed to escape. He must have had a very strong motivation to get out.'

John couldn't look at either of them. His heart was writhing in his chest.

'The malnutrition could be self-inflicted,' he managed to say. 'He has a tendency towards anorexia, so it may predate the abduction.'

'Really? Well, in that case, we'll up his nutrient dose and get him onto solids gently. We're pumping him full of antibiotics right now to get on top of the infection first, plus the moist oxygen mix.'

'Yes, excellent. Is he sedated?'

'No, just drifting in and out of consciousness on his own. We've given him an analgesic, that's all.'

'The nurse said he kept asking for you,' Greg added.

John looked again through the glass, and blinked hard. It was almost too much to hope for.

'Do you mind if I go in?'

'Please do,' Manville said. 'I'll get the nurse to adjust his dosage, and I'll check back with you in a couple of hours, if you can stay that long?'

'Oh yes,' John said without hesitation. 'I'll be here for the duration.'

The only movement from the man in the bed was the slight rise and fall of his ribs. John stood beside him and watched the tiny shift. He had never been so glad to see that reassuring motion.

The oxygen hissed as it passed into the mask over the patient's face. The readout on the monitor blipped with green light. Various tubes dangled, feeding vital fluids and medicines into cannulas anchored in venous arms, blotched blue, and wasted. The figure was emaciated, reminiscent of a blurry monotone photograph of the inmates of Belsen, all protruding bones, bruised and misshapen features and shadowed grey flesh. It was horrible to see him this way. But it was also an almost unbearable joy. Frail and broken he may be, but he was alive.

Sherlock was alive.

Eventually, John couldn't help himself. He reached out and brushed his fingers over the crown of dark curls, shorn but still unmistakable. His lips ghosted over Sherlock's forehead.

'I leave you alone for five minutes, and look at the mess you get yourself into,' he whispered, fond smile breaking through the tears.

Eyelids fluttered, then cracked open, crusted and swollen. Grey eyes struggled to focus, then locked on with that familiar preternatural incisiveness.

'Am I dead?' A rasping croak from under the mask.

John smiled. 'No.'

'I must be. You're here.' Almond-shaped eyes crinkled up into a weak smile. 'You're heaven.'

And then the light faded, and the connection was lost as Sherlock drifted away again, eyelids fluttering shut once more.

And John realised that somehow one emaciated hand had found his, and folded it jealously against labouring ribs.

* * *

Tomorrow, Sherlock is in danger...


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed - I woke up to a forest of emails this morning, and was bouncing about with glee. I'm so glad this story has met with a positive response. I had my misgivings, I have to say. I hope it lives up to your expectations. medical making-it-up follows!

* * *

The nurse, whose name badge announced her as Anita, bustled in some undefined time after that, to take Sherlock's next set of readings and to adjust his medicines. She gave John a friendly smile.

'Just got to fill his sheet,' she said, snatching up the board that hung at the end of the bed to flip through the charts.

John had been sitting in the chair beside the bed for what felt like minutes but when he checked his watch, he realised well over an hour had passed. He had just been watching. It was all he felt capable of.

Anita leaned over Sherlock and pressed a hand on his shoulder. 'Sherlock? Sherlock, I've got to take your temperature now. Just going to pop this reader in your ear, love, won't take a moment.'

She spoke loudly, as if he was deaf. John cringed slightly, knowing that if Sherlock had registered her manner, and the fact that she had referred to him as 'love', he would have bitten her head off. Well, he would, had he been in anything remotely approaching full health.

She took the temperature reading, checked the meter, and looked impressed. 'Seems to be coming down.'

John felt inexpressibly relieved. 'Antibiotics must be kicking in.'

Anita started fiddling with Sherlock's drips. 'Toby said you were a doctor too.'

'Yes, ex-army trauma surgeon. I'm a GP now.'

She nodded.

And then Sherlock's eyes flicked open, and he muttered something incomprehensible under his mask.

'What's that, love?' Anita made the mistake of lifting the mask to hear what he had said more clearly.

'I said,' Sherlock wheezed. 'I'm not your love. I'm _his_.'

John laughed.

* * *

Another hour or so, and Sherlock woke again. John watched his eyes move under his blue-veined lids, watched the long lashes shiver against his cheekbones, and then felt a warm glow inside when the pale eyes opened and finally focussed on him. He got up and stood over the bed, taking up the bony hand in his own.

'It's okay, I'm here.'

A mutter under the mask. John lifted it.

'Don't leave me.'

'I'm not going anywhere.'

'I'm so sorry.'

'We can talk about everything when you're better. Just rest now.'

Thin fingers tightened around John's. Sherlock brushed the mask away, and pulled John's hand up to his lips. The kiss was light but heartfelt. Then he let John replace the mask.

* * *

Sherlock had started to snore a little. Softly. It was ridiculously reassuring.

To stop himself giggling with relief, John got up, feeling stiff. He wondered if Greg was still outside, and went to look, enjoying the stretch in his legs.

Greg was not alone.

Mycroft was there, sitting on a plastic chair in the antiseptic-smelling corridor with a face as grey as the grey wings in his hair. John had not seen him since the funeral. They had not been on speaking terms. Frankly, the elder Holmes looked terrible. John was struck by how much his betrayal of Sherlock to Moriarty, the knowledge that his great mind had been outwitted, at the cost of his precious brother, had withered Mycroft. He looked ghostly by comparison with the man he had been when John first met him.

Greg stood up, shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, not sure how John would react. Neither was John. He was surprised to find he felt sorry for Mycroft. He held out a hand for him to shake. Mycroft rose and took it gingerly, as if not trusting that it was offered honestly. Maybe he didn't trust anything anymore.

'It's him then?' he said.

'Yes. I don't know how, and I don't much care. All that matters is that it is really him.'

For a moment, Mycroft lurched, and Greg caught his arm, helped him to sit again. Truly, he was frailer, John saw. Mycroft pressed long fingers to the bridge of his nose, and for a moment John thought he might faint. Then he spoke.

'He will live?'

'Yes.'

'Thank God.'

'Yes.' John didn't know what else to say. He watched the older man come to terms with the shocking news slowly, as if it was dawning on him that a new world was unfolding around him.

'You really had no idea?'

'I knew that someone was picking off the remains of Moriarty's organisation, but we couldn't find out who it was. It must have been him, all along.' He shook his head again, as if trying to puzzle out an unfathomable riddle. 'But you identified the body, John?'

'Yes,' John said, looking down into grey eyes turned up to his own, searching for some sense, some meaning in this mess. He was suddenly glad he had not seen Mycroft in the interim. Those eyes were so like Sherlock's that it would have broken him to see them. 'I swear it was him. And he really was dead. I wasn't wrong. I have no idea how he did it.'

Mycroft turned to Greg. 'And you say he was tortured?'

'Yes, but we have no idea of where or by who.'

(John smiled a little to himself. Sherlock would have crisply corrected his grammar: 'By _whom_, Lestrade.')

'I imagine it was someone powerful, someone who didn't want Moriarty's system removed. In which case, they will be furious that he got away, and as soon as they find out where he is, they will come for him.'

John felt the blood drain from his face. 'What?' And then, 'They'll have to get past me first!'

'I can get a twenty-four hour police guard put on him,' Greg volunteered.

'I don't think that will be sufficient. Even with John by his side. We need to get him to somewhere safe as soon as possible.'

'He's hardly a threat-'

'Not now, perhaps, but he has made things uncomfortable for them, and they won't allow him to get away with that if they can help it. It would encourage others. Reputation is by far the best prevention to such people, believe me.'

'Do you have any idea who it is?'

Mycroft shrugged, an uncharacteristic gesture for a man so sure of everything in his world. 'Perhaps the Russians. Who knows? Someone powerful enough to swat a man like Moriarty away like a fly.'

'Jesus,' Greg breathed.

'My brother does nothing by halves. Even making enemies.'

'What do you suggest,' John asked.

'Is he strong enough to travel?'

'Maybe. By ambulance, fair enough. By air, possibly, so long as it's not high altitude. His lungs are pretty compromised right now.'

'Very well. Give me an hour. Greg, get your men in, in the interim. I will arrange for an extraction team to transport you to a military hospital-'

'With all due respect, Mycroft-'

'Not a standard one, John. Of course not. We have secret, secure establishments. I assume I will include you in the arrangements?'

It was Mycroft's first hint that he understood John's importance in his brother's life.

'Of course.'

'Good. He will need to be monitored by a skilled medic, and I doubt I can get one of your standard at such short notice.'

Well, maybe not. But there had been the suggestion of understanding there, and at least he understood that John's abilities would be useful. Mycroft had never been one to underestimate John's skills as a doctor and a soldier.

Mycroft got up, a little stiff but more secure on his feet.

'I will arrange it. One hour.'

'Don't you want to see him?' John asked, confused.

'There will be time for a reunion when he is safe,' Mycroft pointed out. 'And I doubt he will be overjoyed to see me.'

He gave Greg a significant glance, and stalked away. Greg pulled out his phone and gave John a worried look as he dialled.

* * *

Anthea came, bringing two bags from Baker Street. She didn't look any different from the day he had first seen her, and she barely acknowledged him as usual. He noted that her Blackberry had been updated to the latest smartphone, however.

He checked in the bags. She must have watched hours of footage of him coming and going from the flat to know which were the clothes he wore most. They were all in there, along with a wash bag full of the necessaries, his electric razor and medication. There were also a couple of novels that he had been keeping on his bedside table for when he got around to reading. Sherlock's bag contained clothes which Mrs Hudson had carefully preserved at the flat. (She could never bear to throw anything of his away.) There was also a matching wash bag. John was delighted to find the purple silk shirt had been included. It had faded a little over the years but he still wanted to see Sherlock in it when he was well enough to get up.

'Okay, what's the drill?'

Anthea didn't look up from the screen. However, she did glance at the glass panel in the door, behind which Sherlock slept silently in his waffle-blanket cocoon.

'A team will be here to collect you in-' she checked her watch – 'seven minutes. You will leave by chopper from the helipad on the roof. You'll appreciate I can't tell you where you are going.'

'Of course not. Thanks for the things, by the way.'

She shrugged, leant against the wall to continue her silent communication and await the transport group.

Bang on time, seven minutes later, what looked like a SWAT team came surging up the corridor, bristling semi-automatics and Kevlar, four green-suited, white helmeted paramedics in their midst. Under Toby Manville's direction, they wrapped the dazed patient in a lurid orange bag that looked like a quilted sleeping bag with a hood, and secured him to a rigid stretcher, drips, tubes and oxygen mask still attached, and then yomped him up flights of stairs to the roof.

When he realised what was happening, Sherlock started to struggle. John crouched down beside him and stroked his cheek.

'You have to lie still.'

'Mycroft!' Sherlock choked and began to cough painfully, his whole body wrenched by the spasms. John struggled to ease him back onto the stretcher.

'It's okay, you'll be safe.'

'He's not secure,' Sherlock gasped, his lips turning alarmingly blue.

John gently gripped Sherlock's face between his palms and fixed his eyes on those frantic grey orbs. Sherlock stilled immediately.

'The people who took you, who hurt you, they're coming for you. We have to get you somewhere safe. I'm not going to let them take you, Sherlock. I will protect you. Do you understand?'

The thin face nodded, betraying something like awe.

'We're going to get you away from here. Somewhere safe. Somewhere you can get well. While Mycroft sorts something out. And he'll fix it, Sherlock. He owes you that.'

Sherlock seemed to relent, softened back into his quilted hood.

'Besides, a few weeks on a hillside somewhere, just you and me – it might be nice.' John added his most persuasive smile, and the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched up slightly.

John grinned. 'Doesn't sound so bad, does it? You just lie there, and let me take care of it, okay?'

Sherlock muttered something.

'What was that?' John lifted the mask a little.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 'Just you and me and a thousand squaddies,' he complained in one long wheeze.

'Well, at least you'll have someone else to bark at when you're not speaking to me,' John smirked. And Sherlock smirked back at him.

He's coming back to me, John thought. He's better. Just a bit, but it's a start. And he checked the drips and made sure his patient was comfortable as, out of the corner of his eye, he registered the military chopper swooping in from the north.

* * *

Tomorrow, the flight causes problems for the patient...


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Thank you once again to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed this story. Just a reminder, there wil be updates every weekday, but this one has only seven chapter, which means you'll have to wait for the last one over the weekend. Sorry. I shall be otherwise engaged on family business in the Land of No-Internet, so I'm warning you in advance. Anyway, down to business...

* * *

They flew for more than an hour. John's sense of direction was quickly scrambled once they got out of London, and the landmarks became unfamiliar, though they were flying low in deference to Sherlock's clogged lungs. John settled down beside the patient while the paramedics kept track of Sherlock's vital signs. For a while, the detective looked around him with frightened eyes. John stroked his cheek gently, trying to reassure. Eventually exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he slept. John tried to look out of the window, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Sherlock. He still couldn't believe his friend was really back.

They passed over frothing sea, and landed on a piece of empty ground that felt like the edge of the world. There was a small building beside the helipad, and an ambulance. The stretcher was loaded in, and John sat beside Sherlock's head as they drove away. He peered out of the tinted windows, but there was nothing much to see, just empty ground, treeless and devoid of civilisation. After a few minutes they reached a security gate, and armed men opened the back doors to check the occupants. Then they moved on, and drew up in a small compound of tatty nissen huts. When John got out, his heart sank. It looked really grim. Grey sky and run-down buildings in an empty landscape. Only when they got inside did he see the ruse. The base was left to look neglected for the benefit of satellite overflights, but inside it was a state-of-the-art unit for the care of high-profile patients, probably Royals and major politicians, John surmised. It was warm and lavishly carpeted. They were met by a team of medics who received the stretcher with extreme care.

The chief physician introduced himself, ripping off a crisp salute. 'Captain Watson, I'm Clitheroe, RAMC, and this is Squadron Leader Mike Trevose, our head Staff nurse.'

John returned their salutes, and then shook both their hands warmly. 'Just John, please.'

That was when they realised their patient's distress.

'Sherlock?'

He was coughing again, struggling to breathe.

'Pain,' he whispered.

'Where?'

'Chest.'

John shared a look with Clitheroe, who said, 'probably the flight.'

Trevose had already clipped a portable monitor to Sherlock's middle finger. 'His blood oxygen is down, sir.'

John leant over Sherlock and looked calmly down into his eyes. 'Okay, we're going to get you settled and give you something for the pain, but it's probably the effects of the air pressure. Is it just your chest?'

Sherlock nodded, rendered mute as he sucked at the oxygen supply.

John held his hand as they hurried him into the ward and expertly lifted him from the backboard into the bed. The efficient nursing team bustled around them. Clitheroe injected a dose of vascular deconstrictor into Sherlock's left cannula and followed it with an opiate. John stroked Sherlock's cheek gently, using his eyes to hold his attention.

'You'll be comfortable soon, just a few more moments.'

Sherlock blinked his reply. Then John saw his pupils dilate.

'That's the opiate,' he smiled.

Sherlock nodded

'Good?'

Under the mask, Sherlock wheezed, 'better than street heroin.'

'Bloody better be,' John smiled. 'It probably costs three times as much.'

Sherlock swallowed awkwardly.

'Pain anywhere else?'

A shake of the head. His focus was beginning to wane now. Sherlock was drifting.

'Blood oxygen's rising again,' Clitheroe said.

'Sleep now,' John whispered, as Sherlock's eyelids fluttered.

* * *

The room had two beds, separated by a small space and a locker. Both were prepared to receive occupants. John glowed. He realised the arrangement Mycroft and Anthea had made took account of his closeness to Sherlock. And clearly, everyone on the base assumed without comment that they were a couple.

Once Sherlock was settled, John went to the treatment room next door to go through his notes with Clitheroe. He was impressed. The doctor clearly knew his stuff, especially when it came to dealing with survivors of torture. John began to feel more and more optimistic about Sherlock's swift improvement. After cups of tea and planning a treatment regime, Clitheroe took John to meet Lieutenant Diane Thompson, who was a nutritionist, and they sat down to plan a diet that would support Sherlock's recovery and longer term health, taking account of his previous medical history. Of course, the intervening three years were a blank for John, but he'd known Sherlock well enough before that, and had a good idea of the chequered past that preceded their introduction.

After that he had a tour of the frankly sumptuous facilities, which included a full surgical theatre, CAT and MRI scanners, and a physiotherapy pool. Then he went back to the little room where his friend slept under the canopy of an oxygen tent, pale and wheezing. He sat on the second bed for a long time, just watching. Outside the window, darkness fell, and still he watched by the light of a little lamp over Sherlock's bedhead. An orderly bought him a tray of food, but he could only pick at it. It was gone three in the morning when he finally realised he ought to get some sleep. In a daze, he stripped down to his boxers and climbed under the covers, but found himself lying there, staring at the profile of the man who slept, propped up beside him.

The world had changed. In only a few hours, John's life had been turned upside down. But then, that was life with Sherlock for you.

* * *

Dawn filled the room with drab grey light. John came to slowly, and it was several moments before he realised it was not the daylight filtering through the curtains that had woken him. Sherlock was moaning.

No, not moaning. Crying.

John sprang out of bed, and quickly unzipped the oxygen tent.

'What is it?'

Sherlock turned his face away, but he wasn't having that. He pressed his fingers to the now blade-like jaw, and eased it round. Sherlock's bruised and discoloured cheeks were slick with tears.

'Oh, God, what is it, what's wrong?'

'I'm sorry,' Sherlock whimpered. 'So sorry.'

'Are you hurting? Are you in pain?'

Sherlock shook his head, his face contorted with regret and despair. He sobbed, a hoarse, agonised sob that made his poor chest heave, and tore at his tender lungs.

'Oh, God, no,' John murmured. Instinct took over. This was not what professional doctors did with their patients, but damn it, Sherlock was not really his patient. So he did what he needed to do.

He climbed into the tent and zipped it shut behind himself. Then he took Sherlock gently in his arms and held him. Softly stroked his flattened curls, moist with sweat. Stroked his stained, swollen cheeks. Rocked him sweetly, despite the tubes and drips and cables. Laid him back against the pillows, arms about his fragile form, and held him longer, and more tenderly, than he had probably ever been held in his life before.

'It's alright now, my love. It's alright. It's over. I'm here. It's okay.'

Sherlock whimpered, wordless, and sank against his chest with a strange kind of relief.

And then, somehow they slept.

* * *

John woke a few hours later, aware of a nurse's shape made oily and warped through the plastic wall of the tent, as she tactfully checked records at the foot of the bed, keeping her head down, her gaze averted. Sherlock still slept in his arms, turned a little against his body, head on his shoulder, breathing steadily.

It felt beautiful.

I love him, John thought, watching the hollowed out face. I love him and I'm not going to take no for an answer this time.

* * *

Tomorrow, the treatment process begins...


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Commenters on A03 have pointed out my my medical inaccuracies. You may also have noticed. Sorry guys, but I refer you to my original disclaimer, ie, I made it all up because I'm not a medic. The point of the story is the love affair, not the treatment program. Yes, I take the point about doing the research, but please don't let it spoil the plot for you. This is about feelings, so please try to hang onto that.

However, thank you again to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed. I really appreciate it. And just to let you know, I'm working on the next part of Three Weddings, so hopefully you won't have to wait too long for that either.

Please note that the quote is from 'The Honourable Schoolboy' by John LeCarre, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977.

**Warning:** this chapter contains fluff.

* * *

The dressings had to be changed, but Sherlock was not having it. He did not like the nurses touching him, for some reason, and John had to intervene.

'What's the matter with you? You know this needs to be done.'

'You do it,' Sherlock wheezed, his dissent having reduced him to a coughing fit that was agonizing to watch.

'Doctors don't' change dressings.'

'Doctors don't cuddle their patients in bed at night,' Sherlock snapped back, and immediately started coughing again. John cringed. He hated seeing Sherlock struggle to breathe like this, but it was heartening that he was becoming uncooperative. It meant the old Sherlock was reasserting himself.

'Alright, if it will shut you up, but I'll have to have a nurse to assist me.'

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but seemed to relent.

Between them, John and the nurse – whose name was Beverley – turned the patient onto his side. John undid the ties at the back of the surgical gown Sherlock had been put into on his arrival. He tried to distance himself from the body under his hands but it was almost impossible. Underneath the thin cotton fabric, translucent skin was stretched over prominent bones. But the skin was horribly marked, purple and red, with diagonal striations that bit into the thin flesh and tore at the sharp edges.

As he gently pulled at the dressings, Sherlock flinched. John peeled back the surgical tape, and there it was – the evidence of what had done this terrible damage. A deep, swollen bruise, punctured by three triangularly placed gashes. The marks of a three-pin plug. They had lashed Sherlock with an electric cable – probably the same one they had later used to shock him – with the plug still attached. The prongs had dug into the skin, but the holes had been neatly sutured by the team at Barts.

There were four more places where the plug had bitten into the scant tissue. One or two of the wounds lower down the back were still weeping, looking worryingly inflamed. Hardly surprising – God alone knows what kind of muck ends up on the prongs of a plug, John thought, as he carefully cleaned off each site. More cause for concern about infection, together with the added issue of pressure sores which might develop on Sherlock's bony frame.

The lowest wound was on Sherlock's buttock. While this gave the least cause for concern because it had dug into muscle rather than into the gaps between bones, it was the place that gave John the most distress. He had to stop for a minute and grind his teeth before he could go on. Beverly affected not to notice, but he was certain she had. He had no idea why this particular desecration upset him so much. Perhaps it was merely that Sherlock's backside had always been one of the joys of his figure, a magnificent swell of muscle that even John at his most heterosexual had been able to appreciate. Sherlock had a great arse. Now it was scarred for life. Those three punctures would always be there to remind him of how close he had come to his end, a death after death.

John took a deep breath, calmed himself and redressed the wounds. Then he and Beverly gently turned Sherlock onto his back again, so that the ones on his chest and thighs could be dealt with.

* * *

The orderly brought scrambled eggs. And toast, which John knew full well Sherlock wouldn't eat. But the eggs were worth a try.

The patient was sitting up, a nasal tube now feeding him oxygen. He blinked in confusion as John sat gently on the edge of the bed and began to fork up some of the lemon-yellow mound.

'What's that?' Sherlock croaked.

'Your breakfast.' John held up the fork with a small clump of egg balanced on it. 'Eat up.'

Sherlock almost went cross-eyed, looking at it. He wrinkled his nose.

'Okay,' John said, and put the fork in his own mouth.

Sherlock looked pained.

'You going to try some, or am I going to have to eat the lot?'

Painful swallow. Slight nod. Eyes riveted on the food.

John loaded the fork again. Not a lot, just a small mouthful, but it was a significant amount of protein for a man in Sherlock's state.

'You need to eat,' he said, holding it out. 'You'll get better much quicker if you do. And you're hungry too, aren't you? Don't try to be nonchalant with me. I know you too well.'

Sherlock opened his beautiful lips. A pang went through John's body. How often had he ached for that mouth in the last three years? Too many times to remember, let alone count. He forced his hand to stay steady, and guided the fork home. Sherlock slurped up the eggs and closed his lips, chewing hesitantly.

'Good?'

Slight nod. Swallow.

'More?'

Nod.

He loaded the fork a third time. 'You know, you could feed yourself.' But he doubted his friend would have the strength at this point to hold the fork up to his mouth, and besides, it was nice to feel useful, to offer him something so simple and yet symbolic.

A shake of the head. Silver-grey eyes watching him, observing every flicker of emotion on his face.

'Alright, tomorrow maybe.'

Another shake.

'Well, I'm not going to spoon-feed you for the rest of your life, you know.'

Sherlock made a plaintive face.

'Don't give me that,' John laughed, and offered him another forkful.

And for the first time, Sherlock genuinely smiled. Not a little smirk, or a weak twitch of the lips. This was a deep, rich smile, fond and affectionate.

'Alright, I'm a pushover. But only for a few days, and then you'll have to do it yourself, because you really need the exercise. The physio will have my hide if he finds me doing this!'

Now a distinct grin. Getting a bit of his old mischief back. John suddenly realised he felt deliriously happy. He looked into Sherlock's eyes and let him see the joy in his heart, let him read the relief and the peace that they were together.

Sherlock's almond eyes crinkled up, and it was as if the intervening three years had never happened.

* * *

'Read to me.'

Sherlock's voice was rough and crackly.

'I haven't got anything much with me,' John said, giving the cover of the novel on his lap a brief glance. 'Not that you'd be interested in.'

'Anything. I don't care. Read the phone book if you like. I just want to hear your voice.'

John smiled and unfolded his legs. He was sitting in the armchair by the bed. He had been reading whilst the patient slept. Now the patient was awake, and impatient.

'What's that?' Sherlock asked him.

'Er, John LeCarre. I didn't think you liked spy novels.'

'Please?'

'Do you want me to start from the beginning?'

'No, start where ever you are. I don't mind.'

John shrugged. 'Okay, but I'm not a brilliant reader.'

Sherlock sighed and smiled, and John opened his book again.

'The fact remains,' he began, 'that Saigon was the worst place on earth for Jerry to be kicking his heels. Periodically, as the delays dragged on, there was talk at the Circus of sending him somewhere more salubrious…'

(And that was how John began the lifelong habit of reading novels to Sherlock, novels that Sherlock didn't really listen to. All he heard, all he cared to hear, was the little doctor's voice.)

* * *

Tomorrow, Sherlock experiences unforeseen and unpleasant complications...


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Thank you to everyone who has so kindly favourited, followed and reviewed. You are making me want to write lots more! I'm never going to get the Cuddleverse finished at this rate!

**Warning:** contains some descriptions that some squeamish readers may find extremely unpleasant. Any male readers may want to cross their legs and cringe. Again, medical disclaimer, I made it up.

**IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING UPDATES:** I'm really sorry, but I have to head off into the Land of No-Internet tonight to do some family business, which means the next update won't be till Monday. I know I'm leaving you hanging a bit, but at least you know I'll be there for you on Monday morning as usual. Sorry.

* * *

The next day, John got back from a run around the perimeter fence to find Sherlock struggling to sit up on the edge of the bed, gripping the sides of the mattress with white knuckles. His face was covered with a sheen of perspiration, and he was shivering. John didn't need a medical degree to see that a further infection had taken hold.

'Nurse!' he shouted, dropping his water bottle on the foot of the bed, and rushing to his side. 'Back into bed, Sherlock. Now.'

Sherlock juddered. Mike Trevose appeared in his reassuring blue uniform.

'How the hell did this happen?' he said, lifting Sherlock's feet as John angled him back onto the pillows.

'Pull the curtains, will you? I need to examine him.'

Sherlock turned his face away, and John immediately smelt a rat.

'What's going on, Sherlock? What is this?'

Sherlock glanced at Trevose, his face drawn, and shook his head, pursing his lips the way he always did when he was refusing to do or say something. The staff nurse was checking the drip rates on Sherlock's intravenous medicine.

'Mike, could you give us a minute?'

'Of course.' He glided away, the door closing with a soft 'crump' behind him.

'Now what's going on?'

Sherlock's face had taken on a greenish pallor. He stared miserably up at John, lips still tightly closed.

'Okay, if you won't tell me, I'll tell you. There's a second site of infection, isn't there? One that's hidden. One that would not have been noticed by the original care team because they would not have thought to check there. Am I right?'

Sherlock stared at the ceiling, his face a picture of humiliation.

'They used electricity on you, didn't they? Sherlock? Where is it? There are only two places I can think of that would be hidden sites for torture, and I'm praying it isn't the one I think it is. Is it internal?'

A shake of the head. And then as soon as the penny dropped, and John realised where it was, a flood of shame seemed to cover his friend. He pressed his face into the pillow, turning his body, unable to allow John to look at him.

John felt palpably sick. The thought of anybody doing that to another person was appalling. The thought of Sherlock enduring it was impossible to bear. But he must bear it. He must steel himself, because Sherlock needed all his professionalism now. And his support.

'Dear Christ, Sherlock, don't be ashamed! There's nothing to be ashamed about! I can't think of anybody who could have survived what they did to you, and still had the strength to escape. I know I certainly couldn't!'

Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, sceptical.

John took his hand. 'Believe me, there aren't a dozen men on this planet who could have endured that. You're the bravest man I know. Please don't think this makes you any less than that – it doesn't. Quite the opposite. Please?'

Sherlock still looked wretched.

'I'm sorry, but I'm going to need to examine you. I'll be as gentle as I possibly can, okay?'

The patient considered for a moment, then relented.

John pulled a fresh set of latex gloves from the box in the locker and gritted his teeth. 'Okay, I'm going to pull back the bedding and lift up your gown, okay?'

Sherlock nodded, and John went ahead, exposing the lower half of Sherlock's body. Bones stuck out everywhere. There was a lividity between the legs and around the genital area that spoke horrible volumes.

'I'm just going to examine your penis,' John said, consciously modulating his voice, trying not to think about what he was doing, or rather, who he was doing it to. Sherlock flinched as his member was moved. John took a good look.

'Okay, I need you to bend your legs and put your feet on the mattress, flat.'

With his help, Sherlock complied.

'Now, I'm just going to let your knees down gently. Don't worry, I'll support you.'

It was a simple position, one he regularly used when conducting a gynaecological examination, but here he needed access to the area between Sherlock's legs. Immediately the smell of infection assaulted his nostrils. How had this been missed? But, of course, the torturer had been clever, knowing such a place would not be immediately apparent.

Supporting Sherlock's stick-thin thighs with pillows, John could work with both hands.

'I'm just going to gently lift your scrotum, okay?'

Sherlock was looking away, staring at the wall, cheeks flushed, although John was not sure if that was from embarrassment or fever. He went ahead and cupped the swollen, blotched sac in his palm and lifted it gently up. Sherlock screwed up his face in pain. Underneath, there it was, the angry wound that John had expected, an electrical burn, applied to the back of the scrotum and perineum. It had turned septic.

His heart writhed in his chest.

It was a truly evil thing to do, to burn a man in such a sensitive place. But it showed the malice they were dealing with. Mycroft had been right to spirit them away. People that were capable of this were the worst kind of ruthless. They could not be bargained with.

John gently released Sherlock's testes and stood back, peeling off the gloves and pulling down the hem of the gown. He gave himself a brief moment to gather his emotions, and then spoke.

'Okay, it's bad, but it could be a lot worse. I'm going to have to clean it. I may have to cut away some of the necrotic tissue, and apply a couple of stitches. I think it would be best to sedate you while I see to it, okay?'

Sherlock nodded, still staring at the wall.

'Look at me.'

Reluctantly, Sherlock tore his eyes from the pastel plaster, and looked up at John.

'I will make this alright for you, I promise,' he said.

A nod.

'It doesn't make you less of a man.'

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

'Just in case you were thinking that, which you obviously weren't,' John added. He leaned over and stroked Sherlock's cheek gently. 'We will fix this, I promise,' he said, as gently as he could.

Sherlock looked up into his eyes for what seemed like a long time, and then slowly blinked. It was his catlike way of saying he believed John.

'I just need to get some stuff, and then I can sedate you, and you won't know a thing about it,' John assured. 'I'll be back in a minute, okay?'

A nod.

Just as John reached the door, a weak voice followed him. 'Thank you.'

* * *

Trevose was waiting patiently outside in the corridor. 'Is what you suspected?'

'Testicular and perineal electrodes,' John told him.

'Dear God,' Trevose said, shaking his head. 'I've seen a few, and every one makes me wonder what the fuck is happening to the world.'

John nodded. 'It's sick, but it's the way of things. I'll need to sedate him to work on him.'

'I wouldn't want to have that done awake,' the nurse agreed. 'I'll get everything you'll need.'

'Let Clitheroe know, too, would you? And we'll need to give him additional antibiotics.'

* * *

After the procedure was finished, and Sherlock lay quietly in his cot, sleeping off the anaesthetic, John went outside. It was a sharp, bright afternoon, with a brisk wind whipping across the heather. He strode over the tussocky grass behind the buildings as far as the ten foot high fence. He knew he could be seen from the look-out towers which punctured the boundary every two hundred metres, but he didn't care. He stared out at the pale blue sky and the shivering heath, and wept with rage.

Moriarty.

Everything kept coming back to him. He had taken so much from John. Taken three years of his life, and Sherlock's. Taken the chance for their love to bloom in that time. Taken their intimacy, their friendship, broken their trust. And now this.

The first time John touched Sherlock in that most intimate of places should not have been like that. It should have been tender and passionate. It should have been private and loving and sensuous. Instead, it was overshadowed by pain and harrowing violence. He would forever associate that first touch with the fetid smell of gathering pus and inflamed tissue. And it was Moriarty who had made it so. Without him, Sherlock would have never fallen into the clutches of the men who did this to him. He would never have left. John did not understand how it had happened, did not yet know the details, but he knew it came down in the end to that vile little runt of a man who had set out to destroy their lives.

John looked out at the hillside, wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, and growled aloud.

'I will find that little shit and so help me God, I will take his neck in my hands, and I will crush it till the cartilage is ground to pulp, and his eyes pop out and his tongue turns blue. So help me God, I _will_ kill him.'

Somewhere, high up, a skylark trilled.

* * *

Tomorrow, John faces up to his feelings...


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Thanks once again t everyone who has favourited, followed and commented. I am finding this one very hard to publish, but we are on the home strait now. Thanks also for bearing with me over the weekend.

Today, John gets to grips with his feelings:

* * *

In the cafeteria, Mike Trevose was having a late lunch of chicken korma with rice, puppadoms and pickles, and it looked exceedingly good.

'Can I join you?' John asked him, holding his own tray. He had taken to eating with other medical staff in the canteen for company, rather than having trays brought to the room. That was fine for feeding Sherlock, but John needed distraction, especially now.

'Great,' the RAF nurse said. 'Having the curry? It's excellent.'

They ate in silence for a few minutes, John finding himself analysing the order in which Trevose approached his food just like Sherlock would.

'So, how you doing?' Mike eventually said.

John shrugged. 'OK, I s'pose. Bored, mostly.'

'No, I mean about this morning, the infection. It's pretty hard.'

'Yeah.' John looked hard at his plate, feeling the anger well up again.

Trevose was quiet for a minute, apparently thoughtful, then spoke. 'What you two have is great. He's lucky he's got you.'

John couldn't help his startled look. 'Er, well, it's not as, well, not what it looks like. Er.'

'Looks like two people who are very much in love to me,' Trevose said, rather pragmatically, and forked up another pile of curry.

'I really wish it was that simple,' John found himself sighing. 'I don't know what I'm going to do when he's better.'

'What do you mean?' Trevose's brows knitted.

'Look, three years ago he was my friend and my flatmate, and I was his colleague. And that was all. And then I saw him jump off a five storey building. At least I thought I did. I thought he was dead. For three years.'

Trevose's eyebrows leapt into his hairline.

'I thought he was dead', John repeated, still trying to get his head around what had happened, even after all this time. 'Three years later he washes up in the Thames in this state, and what the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm so fucking in love with him that my marriage broke up. And I've never even told him. I'm bloody straight, for God's sake. At least, I thought I was.'

Trevose nodded sagely. He obviously realised that John had not confided in anybody about this before, and seemed willing to be a sounding board.

'I mean, it's what you want when you lose somebody, isn't it? To have them back? But the thing is, it doesn't happen. It never happens. That's the whole point. Trust him to turn up like bloody Lazarus and wreck what was left of my life!'

'But you love him,' Trevose pointed out.

'Yes, yes I do.' John realised he was spitting nuggets of rice all over the table. 'Sorry, you don't need to hear this.'

'You need to say it, though.'

They were both silent again. John had lost the heart to eat his meal and he pushed lumps of yellowish chicken around his plate with his fork listlessly.

'My partner died,' Mike said suddenly. 'I wish I had told him. I mean, properly. We never really said it. I always assumed he knew, but then he was suddenly gone, and the chance to tell him had passed. I'll always regret that.'

'What happened?' John asked, because he felt he had to.

'He was a Tornado pilot,' Mike said, as if that completely explained it.

'Afghanistan?'

'No, stupidly enough. Mechanical failure over the Solway Firth. If he had been going to a theatre of war, I might actually have said something. But I never did.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Thanks.' Trevose shrugged. 'I know what you mean about the wanting him back thing. You'd do anything, wouldn't you, just to have them back, even though you know it wouldn't be the same. I used to have dreams that Paul came back, that he'd been away somewhere with another man, another lover, but he wouldn't talk about it, and there was always this feeling that he might leave again.'

'Yep, I had those too,' John agreed. He looked out of the window. 'And now it's happened to me for real. He's back, but it's not the same. He'll never be the same.'

'You don't know that. He sounds like he's a pretty tough guy. The effects of the torture-'

'I've had PTSD myself, I know what it's like. I know what he's going to go through,' John told him flatly.

'Just give it time,' Mike responded.

'Yeah, sorry. I shouldn't have snapped.'

'It's okay.'

Trevose finished his curry. John gave up on his and stared out of the window. After a while, he said, rather lamely:

'Thing is, I'm just not gay.'

The nurse wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. 'You fall in love with the person, not the genitals.'

'Yes,' John said, realising he was understood for the first time. 'Yes, that's exactly it. I mean, I never fancied men before, never. Not a twitch. I can see sometimes when a bloke is good-looking, but it's not like with Sherlock. He's, well, he's-'

'Fucking gorgeous?' Trevose supplied.

John laughed.

'Don't try and tell me you're just in love with his mind,' the nurse went on. 'Because I'd know you were lying. If he was mine, I wouldn't let him out of the house!'

'Yeah, you should see him when he's well and in full sail! My God, that arse!'

They grinned at one another.

'And I've no idea how he'll react,' John went on. 'He doesn't do relationships. I have no idea if he's ever even had one. I'd have thought he was asexual except for this one time, this woman –' Suddenly it was too hard to explain. He just couldn't stomach talking about _her_. 'Anyway, he'll probably run a mile. He hates emotions.'

'Tell him,' Mike said gently. 'Just tell him. He loves you. Anybody can see that.'

'If only it were that simple.' John shook his head, sadly.

'Maybe you should make it that simple.'

* * *

In the next, and last, episode tomorrow, things finally come to a head for John and Sherlock...


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Dear everyone, thank you so much for all the support you have given this story. I have to say its been the toughest one I've ever done in terms of feedback, and there have been times when I've felt like throwing all my toys out the pram and giving up. But that would be pointless, and its the kind support from you that has kept me going. I hope this last part lives up to your expectations and answers all questions.

And just to reassure you, if you are waiting, Three Weddings Part 2 is in hand. I promise.

* * *

Three days. Three days during which John watched Sherlock and tended to him, nursed him and said nothing. Three days for the anaesthetic to leech out of his system, and the antibiotics to topple over this second, more insidious infection. Sherlock slept and John watched him. Meals came, and John fed him. The physio came and pumped Sherlock's wasted muscles as he lay on his bed, and John watched. Biding his time. Listening to his own heart.

The understanding grew inside him, minute by minute. Mike Trevose was right. There would never be a better time, and it was up to John to make it right.

On the morning of the second day, Sherlock had blurrily asked for them to shift the locker between the beds and move them together, so that John would be closer to him in the night. For part of that afternoon, he clung to John's hand, drifting in and out of sleep while John read to him. It was as if he knew something was coming.

John had made his mind up to wait, though. He wanted to be sure Sherlock was over the delirium and confusion of the infection, so that his mind would be clear. He wanted Sherlock to remember, and to understand what he had to say. He knew Mike was watching him, but he was determined not to rush. He would wait until the time was right, and then he would tell Sherlock, and ask for an answer that would decide the future course of his life. No more waiting, no more uncertainty. One way or the other, he would finally know.

* * *

Day four. Sherlock woke softly, gently, to find John sitting on the side of the bed watching him, holding his hand. He blinked and frowned.

'Thirsty,' he croaked.

John held the glass and the straw while Sherlock sucked at it. He watched the detective's cheeks hollow. Then his head flopped back onto the pillow and he panted for a minute or two from the effort.

'Enough?' John asked him.

He nodded.

John put the glass back on the top of the locker and took up Sherlock's hand again.

'You look about to burst,' the patient said.

'There's something I need to say, something I've been needing to say for a long time.' John told him. 'Something important.'

'You're leaving, aren't you?'

'No! What makes you think that? Where would I go?'

'Back to your wife.'

The words hung between them.

'You know?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

Sherlock huffed. 'Don't be an idiot! Of course I would have kept my contact network going in London! Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to-' But then the effort and emotion was too much and he collapsed into wracking coughs. It was several minutes, and more water, before he could speak again.

'Look, Sherlock-' John began.

'No. Go back to Mary.'

'Maria. Her name is Maria. Why do you always do this? Why do you spoil things when I'm trying to make them right?'

They were scowling at each other. John struggled back to his original purpose.

'Look, my marriage is over. Actually, I don't think it ever really began. We're getting a divorce. I shouldn't have married her. She's a good woman, she deserves better than being married to a man who's in love with someone else.'

Sherlock blinked at him.

'Yes, you pillock, put that in your pipe and smoke it,' John snapped. 'I love you. I always have, but I'm pretty sure you've always known it. Right from day one. So now I'm saying it. Properly. I love you. I'm devoted to you. You can do whatever you want with it, but here I am, and I'm staying because I've got nowhere else to go, and you're the only person I want to be with. Forever, right? The rest of my life.'

It had come out angrily when he had meant it to be a seduction, a romantic enticement. But Sherlock never made things easy. His way was always to complicate affection into a fight. No matter how frustrating, it was who he was, and John still loved him.

Only now he was looking pretty startled. Then, after a moment, he spoke. It wasn't what John expected him to say.

'I slept with Irene.'

It was like a punch in the diaphragm. John reeled for a minute and then struggled to regroup.

'Yes, but that was ages ago. Before.'

'No. Mycroft told you she was dead, didn't he? She isn't. She's living in Paris. I went there. After. I had sex with her. It was a disaster.'

'She's dead. The Taliban killed her,' John repeated, dazed, as if the repeating would make it true. And then he realised that if Sherlock could come back from the dead, then anything was possible.

'Look, Moriarty had a sniper on you that day,' Sherlock wheezed on. 'You, and Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade. They'd have killed you all if I hadn't jumped. Those were Moriarty's instructions. As soon as I realised he was the only one who could call them off, he blew his brains out-'

'He's dead?' John almost shouted.

'It was _his_ body that fell, his body you identified as mine.'

'Don't be ridiculous! I'd have known the difference between you and that evil little runt-'

'Not with a dose of HOUND inside you.'

'But-'

'The cyclist who knocked you over?'

John gawped. And then it dawned. 'You'd pre-planned it all,' he gasped. 'You had help. Accomplices.'

'You would have been killed on the spot otherwise. What else could I do, John? I couldn't watch you die!'

And he collapsed back into wrenching coughs, his whole body convulsing. Head spinning, John held him till it was over, arms about bony shoulders, helped him to more water, waited for him to recover.

Sherlock went on, panting now between sentences. 'Once a contract is issued, the only way to terminate it is either to withdraw it, or to terminate the operative charged with it. Since the former was no longer an option, I had to undertake the latter. I had to stay dead long enough to eliminate the men contracted to kill you. If they'd had the slightest inkling I was alive, it would have been over, John, you have to understand that! I couldn't tell you, no matter how much I wanted to! And I did, believe me!'

He sank back into the pillow, ashen-faced and struggling for breath. John watched the cage of his ribs rise and fall in anguish.

'All this was to save me?' he managed after a while.

Sherlock nodded weakly. 'To save you and to take down the last of Moriarty's organisation so it could never threaten us again.'

'But you were going to come back?'

Sherlock looked away.

'You weren't?'

'I thought you would be safer without me. I couldn't bear the thought of anybody hurting you.'

'So you would have just left me to rot?'

'You started a new life! As far as I knew, you were happy!' He managed to supress more coughs, his body curling up away from the pillow as he clenched his stomach. 'Oh, God.'

John pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and screwed up his eyes. It was all totally insane, but it had that undeniable Sherlockian logic to it, logic that failed entirely to take account of the emotional component of human behaviour.

'You couldn't bear to watch me die, so you made me watch you die instead? You know how fucked-up that is? I nearly killed myself, did you know that? I had the gun in my hand every night for months. The only thing that saved me one night was Lestrade walking in on me. That would have fucked up your clever little scenario, wouldn't it?'

Sherlock's eyes widened. For a moment, he seemed to judder, and then tears came, silently streaming down his cheeks.

'Yes, you've been a complete arse, haven't you?' John said, cruelly. 'Why the hell did you come back to London anyway?'

'To find the last one, Moriarty's last henchman.' Sherlock looked up at him, eyes pleading. 'Moran. His favourite. His Capo di Capo. He's still out there, somewhere, and he knows about you. But then _they_ found me.'

'The Russians?'

'Yes.' Sherlock fell silent for a few moments as he wrestled with the truth. 'I lay there in that cellar and I knew I was going to die. _Really_ die this time. It focusses the mind, doesn't it, that kind of realisation? And I knew then. The only thing that mattered. You. I had to see you one last time. Even if you hated me, I had to see your face, hear your voice. One more time. So that it was all worth it.

'So I waited. They made a mistake eventually. I knew they would.'

'They overestimated how sick you were?'

'Oh, no. They had a doctor on hand at all times to see to that. They underestimated my will to see you again. They left a door open. They thought I was too ill to get up and use it.'

'But you did.'

'I remember-' He frowned, his eyes on the far distance as he struggled to piece together fractured memories. 'The river. Darkness. Calling out for you. Then you came. Or I thought you did. It was as if you were there, beside me in the water, giving me your strength. I knew you'd find me, somehow. That we'd find each other. Does that sound ridiculous?'

He sniffed away the tears a little and started coughing again. John got a tissue and blotted his love's face.

'The mind is incredibly powerful,' he said.

'And then you were there,' Sherlock rambled on, lost in the scrambled memories of his trauma. 'Really there, holding my hand, and I thought I was dead, I thought I was in heaven. Because you were my heaven, John, all that time in that cellar. I don't believe in God, but I believe in you.'

They were both shaking. John felt like his heart had been minced. The tissue fell from his hand, unnoticed, onto the floor. He leaned forward and began kissing away fresh tears from Sherlock's cheeks, and then found that he was weeping too, and their tears mingled. And he kissed Sherlock's full lips softly because he couldn't think of anything more right, more perfect, at that moment.

'I'm so sorry, I really am,' Sherlock croaked.

John gazed down into his many-coloured eyes. 'I know, love. I know.'

'But you're going to make me say it anyway, aren't you?'

John raised a quizzical eyebrow.

'You've got me, heart and soul, John,' Sherlock groused. 'I don't see why you need me to come out with some stupid cliché to prove it!'

'Humour me.'

'Alright, I love you,' he huffed.

'Thank you.'

'And you won't leave?'

'Nope.'

'Never?'

'You're stuck with me now, so you'd better get used to it.'

'Good.'

John slid his arms around the fragile frame and snuggled up on top of the blankets, holding Sherlock as gently but as firmly as he could. Sherlock buried his face in John's chest with a sigh.

After a while, though, John's curiosity got the better of him.

'So what was she like in bed?'

'Mmmm?'

'The Woman?'

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

'Come on, spill?' John pressed.

'Like fucking a cactus.'

John laughed. It was exactly what he wanted to hear, and Sherlock obviously knew it because he went on.

'Seriously, John, that woman is incapable of any kind of tenderness. I'm sure she tried, but it was like having sex with an industrial saw mill. Huge mistake. I threw up afterwards.'

'That bad?'

'As bad as you could possibly imagine.'

'So you didn't manage to-'

'Well, I didn't say that. A man has some pride, after all.'

'But on the whole? Scored out of ten?'

'I would say about minus seven hundred and twenty three.'

'Please say that again, it makes me very happy.'

'Gloating isn't nice, and it isn't funny.'

'Just now, I think I have the right.'

'Like I said. Cactus.' Sherlock lay in his arms, wheezing softly for a while, but in the end, he couldn't resist it. 'So what about you and Mary?'

'Maria.'

'Yes, alright, Maria. On a scale of one to ten?'

John shrugged and made a face. 'It was nice.'

'Nice?' How Sherlock managed to drip sarcasm in his current state was beyond John.

'Yes, nice. Nice is, well, nice, sometimes. When you're lonely and miserable and grieving for the love of your life, nice can be just what you need. And there weren't any obvious cactuses around at the time.'

'You could have gone to bed with Sally Donovan,' Sherlock suggested, mischief in his eyes.

'Oh, God, not even in jest, Sherlock, please!'

'Out of ten?'

'Alright, five.'

'Five?'

'Yes.'

'Pitiful.'

'It's a damn site better than minus seven hundred and whatnot!'

'Granted, but it's not good for someone you are married to.'

'It's probably better than most married people average! Anyway, as I said, I wasn't really in a fit state to judge at that point.'

They lay silently together, still and gentle in each other's arms. Then, just when John was sure Sherlock had drifted off to sleep, he heard his voice, a faint whisper.

'When this is all over, and I'm better, would you consider making love to me?'

'Yes, Sherlock.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'Only, I think I need a little of your tenderness.'

'You can have as much as you want.'

'Really? Thank you.'

'But not till you're better.'

'Okay.' There was a slight pause, and John could almost feel Sherlock's brain buzzing against his sternum.

'John?'

'Yes?'

'I've never been with a man before.'

'Neither have I.'

'Oh.' Slight pause. 'Will it be alright?'

'Out of ten?'

'Yes.'

'I should say if it's you and me we're talking about, probably about _plus_ seven hundred and ninety-three. Or so.'

He felt Sherlock's cheek move against him, the muscle bunching into a smile.

'That's what I thought,' he whispered, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The End


End file.
